by N. P. Martin
To help matters along, I crouched down and smiled at Bane. "Hey boy," I said, hoping he would come to me, which he did after a moment, standing in front of me so I could smooth his big head. His large amber eyes seemed to look deep into mine, as if he was searching my soul for signs of bad intent. When he licked my face, I assumed I had passed his test.
"He seems to like you," Frank said, a slight smile on his face. "He tends to be picky about people, so you should feel privileged."
I looked up at him then, wondering if he was talking about Bane or himself, but he had already turned and gone inside.
The inside of Frank’s cabin was pretty much what I expected to see, in that it was basic and didn’t cater to any notions of good taste or design. The place was purely utilitarian. It felt bare, and devoid of any personality. The tiny living room had two scruffy armchairs by a stone fireplace, and a long table by the window that was covered with books, some of which appeared to be nothing more than novels by the likes of Hemingway and Jack London. Various newspaper clippings were also strewn across the desk, reporting what looked like murders and unexplained happenings in the city and surrounding areas. A police scanner was also atop the table. There didn’t appear to be anything on the walls though, except for a fishing rod and a double barreled shotgun.
I hovered around the living room in awkward silence as Frank rummaged around in the almost non-existent kitchen area, which consisted of a few small cupboards above a short bench, and a sink. The whole place smacked of a man who had mostly turned his back on society, and who seemed completely unbothered by his decision. Despite the heavy vibes of loneliness that hung in the air around me, I could almost respect Frank for living as he did. On some level, I wished I could live the same way, far from the maddening crowd as it were. I wasn’t exactly a big people person myself, Kasey being my only friend. City life also drove me crazy most of the time.
It occurred to me then, that if I didn’t manage to find Josh—or God forbid he turned up dead—I might end up living there in that cabin with Frank after all.
Stop it, I told myself. Josh isn’t going to die. I’ll find him before that can even happen.
At this point, I had to believe that with all my heart. The thought of losing Josh was just…I couldn’t even consider it.
As I shook my head slightly, I caught sight of Frank staring at me, and I quickly looked away as if in shame.
"Would you like a drink?" he asked me. "Do you drink?"
I nodded. "I drink, too damn much."
Frank laughed for a second. "Figures."
"I take it you like to drink?"
"Oh yeah, too damn much."
A slight smile appeared on my face. "Figures."
He threw me a look and shook his head as he walked into the living room with two glasses in one hand and a bottle of whiskey in the other. "Have a seat," he said, gesturing to the farthest armchair before sitting in the closest one, the most threadbare one. As I sat down, I noticed how easily the whiskey bottle seemed to balance on the arm of Frank’s chair, as if hundreds of bottles just like it had now created a permanent impression.
He half-filled one of the glasses and handed it to me. Whiskey wasn’t really my poison, but it served its purpose of calming my nerves somewhat. A few moments later, though, anxiety and a heavy sense of grief began to overtake me again. Turning my head away, I stared down at the cold ashes in the fireplace, trying to get my mind around the fact that Diane was dead, and Josh had been kidnapped, seemingly by demons.
"Are you okay?" Frank asked, already on his second glass of whiskey.
"What do you think?" I said scowling at him.
Frank nodded slightly and looked away.
Sighing, I shook my head. "I’m sorry. I just can’t stop thinking about my foster mother, and my brother." At that moment, I thought I understood why Frank lived alone, given that continual loss of life seemed to be a constant in this new reality, and that such losses could be minimized by having less people in your life.
"I know. I’m sorry."
Chugging back the rest of my whiskey, grimacing at the foul taste, I held the now empty glass out for Frank to refill, which he did, though he put less in this time. "Please tell me you know something," I said. "Tell me my brother isn’t dead."
"I don’t know anything for sure, unfortunately," Frank said. "As far as I can tell, your brother has been kidnapped by demons. I don’t know what for yet, but I intend to find out."
"You said earlier that this is bigger than me. What did you mean by that? Has this happened before?"
"There have been similar incidents recently, all over the country in fact. Young Nephilim like your brother are being snatched by demons, though no one knows what for, not yet anyway."
I shook my head in disbelief. "You knew this was happening and you didn’t think to warn us?" I couldn’t keep my anger down, though I fought to keep it from exploding.
Frank held up a hand. "Listen, I did the best I could. I only became aware of the kidnappings a few days ago. I’ve been keeping an eye on you ever since."
"An eye on me?" I shook my head. "You couldn’t have taken a more direct approach, like telling us what the hell was going on?"
"Really?" He shook his head. "So if I had knocked on your door, and started spouting all this stuff about demons, telling you that you and your brother are at risk of being kidnapped by them, you’d have believed me? You don’t even know me. Would you have believed I was your uncle even? Something tells me you wouldn’t have."
"You don’t know that."
"Oh yeah? What do you think Josh would’ve said?"
"He probably would’ve punched you out."
Frank nodded. "I’ve been watching your brother too, not just you. Josh seems to get in a lot of fights, in and out of the gym."
"He has anger issues."
"My point exactly."
I could only shake my head as I was forced to accept he had a point. There was no doubt Josh would’ve went for Frank had he shown up on our doorstep talking about demons and whatever else. I may have heeded his warnings, though, given that I was more open to my Nephilim heritage than Josh would be. Either way, it didn’t matter now. The only thing that mattered now was getting Josh back safe and sound.
"All right," I said. "At least tell me you have a plan that will help get my brother back before…I don’t know what. Why are these demons taking people?"
"I’m still working on that."
"I suppose you’re still working on a plan as well?"
"Hey," Frank said, a sharpness in his voice. "One step at a time. At this point, I know about as much as you."
Sighing, I shook my head. "Fucking great."
"I know it sucks, but there’s nothing you can do for Josh right now. If it helps, I don’t think he 'll come to any real harm. If they’d wanted him dead, they would’ve killed him at the house."
"That’s very comforting. Thanks."
Frank shook his head at my sarcasm, as if the last thing he needed in his life was a sullen, argumentative teenager with a bad attitude.
As silence grew between us, I was forced to admit that there was nothing I could do for Josh, not until I had more information. I was also forced to concede that I was now relying on Frank to get me that information. He was the seasoned soldier, the one with all the knowledge and contacts. By comparison, I was just a fledgling who had all but fallen out of the nest for the first time. As such, it was going to take me a while to find my wings.
"It’s late," Frank said eventually. "You should get some rest. Tomorrow we’ll try to track down Josh."
There was still a lot I wanted to ask Frank, about his years of absence, and about his relationship with my mother, and about why he and my father had stopped talking to each other. But I simply couldn’t face any more emotional upheaval, which such topics of conversation would surely bring, so I got up and followed Frank out of the living room and down the short hallway to a small bedroom. As I went to enter the bedroom, I n
oticed the trapdoor in the hallway floor, which must’ve allowed access to a cellar. I wondered if the cellar was Frank’s version of my mother’s storage unit, but I didn’t bother to ask him about it. For now, I just wanted to be alone so I could at least try to get my head around everything that had happened tonight.
"You can sleep here tonight," Frank said, gesturing around the room, which contained no more than a bed and a chest of drawers. Frank really did take minimalism to new heights.
I nodded at him. "Thanks."
Frank nodded back, somewhat awkward in my presence. "I’ll see you in the morning then."
When Frank left the room, I went and sat on the edge of the bed for a while, just staring at the floor as I went over in my mind the shocking sequences of tonight’s events. I felt sick to my stomach every time I pictured Diane’s dead body, her neck twisted grotesquely, a look of sheer horror and agony frozen on her face. "Jesus Christ," I said, getting up so I could aimlessly pace the room, on the verge of a mild panic attack as my heart rate elevated and my skin began to get clammy.
Calm down, Leia, calm down…
Eventually I stopped pacing after I told myself that I needed to try and calm down. I needed to think about something other than Josh or Diane. So I went out to the car and retrieved my mother’s journal, along with Josh’s laptop, bringing both back to the room.
Sleep was an impossibility, so I watched the video of my mother a few more times, drawing a strange sense of comfort from seeing and hearing her speak. Eventually, I let the video play on a loop, while I spent the rest of the night and early hours of the morning reading the journal, hoping to find answers to questions that I didn’t even have yet.
11
At some point the next morning, I awoke on the bed with the laptop still playing the video file on a loop, and the journal laying open across my legs. When I opened my eyes, I stared at my mother’s face for a moment as she spoke. Then I sat up and closed the laptop, continuing to sit there as I stared down at the leather cover of the journal I’d spent all night reading.
To be honest, my head was still in a spin from everything I’d read. My mother left a record of nearly every case she had worked on since becoming a Watcher at my age. She even detailed some of her time spent before that, when she was training at some underground facility called the Warren. This made me wonder how different things might be right now if Josh and I had followed the same path, beginning our formal Watcher training together when we came of age. Quite different, I’d say.
The journal was full of detailed accounts about her work, which often included drawings of the supernatural beings she dealt with, and often hunted. From everything I’d read, the impression I was left with was of a woman who possessed fierce strength and courage, was highly intelligent, and who was deadly with all manner of weapons, including magic when the need arose. This woman was a superhero, but with a dark side caused by her own demons, her devotion to her calling taking precedence to all other areas of her life; and to our demise, this included her family too.
She was a woman you didn’t want to cross under any circumstances. More profoundly, she was not at all like the woman who called herself my mother when I was growing up. Hiding her true nature, or at least a part of it, was another of her skills. Not to mention hiding Frank, whose name cropped up in the journal a lot. So much so, in fact, that it became obvious they were partners of some kind. From there, it wasn’t a stretch to believe this partnership had something to do with a falling out between Frank and my father. There was no mention of it in the journal, unless I’d missed it. I would look again later, as my mind was spinning quite enough already.
Tearing my gaze away from the journal, anxiety soon gripped me as I remembered the events of last night. Horrific images of Diane’s twisted body flashed through my mind for an agonizing moment. Squeezing my eyes shut, I willed the images away, but they soon got replaced by thoughts of Josh instead, of how it might make me feel had it been his body ravaged in that way.
God, I hope he’s all right.
Then I thought, Really? He’s been kidnapped by demons, for fuck’s sake. How could he be all right?
Who knew what those demons were doing to him? Josh could be…
No, don’t even think it. He’s still alive. I’d know if he was…dead.
I shuttered and shook my head at the thought.
Hang in there Josh. I’ll rescue you, I promise.
Though God knows how.
When I eventually got up, I couldn’t see any sign of Frank in the cabin. It wasn’t until I ventured outside that I found him around the back, which was a cleared area of mostly grass and dirt, surrounded by tall trees. Frank was on the edge of the clearing, topless and wearing only jeans and boots. He was busy punching and kicking four different punching bags that seemed like huge leather sacks hung by rope from the thick branches of an overhanging tree. The bags hung in a rough semi-circle, and Frank was moving from one to the other, hitting each one with a volley of punches and kicks with so much speed and power that it belied belief. The bags looked heavy as fuck, probably filled with sand or gravel, and yet they were swinging on their rope as if they contained nothing but feathers. Watching them swing wildly in the cold morning breeze, I hazarded to guess that a swinging bag would knock you on your ass if you and it collided, after knocking you out first that is.
Yet Frank, in all his balletic movements and expert timing, didn’t seem too concerned by this risk as he dodged his way around the bags, countering each one as he went. I had seen some really skilled fighters in my time, not the least of which was Josh, but I had never seen anyone move the way Frank did. He fought like his life depended on it, which I suppose it did. If my demon encounter in the alley was anything to go by, then the speed and power of the hits would be the difference between life and death. As it now stood, and in light of seeing what Frank was capable of in his less than optimal age range (a factor I'd never state openly to him, by the way, for obvious reasons), I seriously doubted my potential to follow in my mother's footsteps, or in Frank’s as the case may be.
Bane was sniffing through the undergrowth by the edge of the trees not far from Frank. He barked when he saw me, and then came bounding toward me as I crossed the clearing, almost knocking me off my feet with his large paws. "Hey Bane!" I said excitedly, unable to keep the smile from my face. I love dogs, even though I’ve never had one myself. My mother refused our requests when we were kids, saying we didn’t need the extra responsibility, which, you know…whatever. Looking back, she probably viewed having a pet as too much of a distraction; a distraction from the grooming and training she no doubt had planned for us at some later stage in our lives.
"You sleep all right?" Frank asked as he came walking toward me, sweat dripping from his wiry body.
I shrugged as my eyes lit upon the tattoos on Frank’s chest and arms. They didn’t seem like ordinary tattoos, made up as they were of strange occult symbols and patterns. In a flash, I vaguely remembered seeing the same kind of tattoos on my mother when I was a kid. "What’s with the ink?" I asked him.
"Protection mostly." He pointed to the largest of the tattoos, which took the form of a Celtic knot, encircled by strange looking glyphs. "This one here, for instance, provides protection from most low-level magic attacks."
"Magic attacks?" I shook my head, as if the concept of magic seemed slightly fantastical. Which was ridiculous to think, given everything I’d seen already.
Frank wiped sweat from his face with his arm. "There are lots of adepts out there who wield magic like a weapon. Not all of them friendly."
"I’m still trying to get my head around all of this."
"I know. It’s a lot at first, but you’ll soon get used to it, believe me." He turned away, then added under his breath, "Too damn used to it."
The way he spoke, it was as if he expected me to become one of these Watchers that my mother talked about. A Watcher like her and Frank. When I read in the journal that my father was also a trai
ned Watcher, I was flabbergasted at first, because he was the most gentle man I had ever known. No way could my father be a slayer. But the more I thought about it, the more connections I began to make in my head. Odd things that happened in my childhood, things I could barely even remember, made me think twice. It also made complete sense, if Frank was my father’s brother. I have no idea why I didn’t make that particular connection before. It felt like my mind was struggling to keep up, which was making me miss things. That would have to change if I was going to survive long enough to save Josh.
"You know," Frank said, going back to the punch bags, but not hitting them this time. "Things have changed for you now."
No shit, Sherlock, I felt like saying. "I know they have."
"I’m not sure you do." Frank grabbed a black T-shirt from off the ground and put it on. "Even if you save Josh from these demons, there’ll be no going back for either of you."
I nodded as I crossed my arms. "My mom said the same thing."
Frank couldn’t hide his surprise at that comment. "Your mom?" He shook his head. "What do you mean by that? Your mother kept all this from you and Josh, so…"
I almost smiled at his confusion, but the slightly harrowed look in his eye prevented me from doing so. Frank seemed to take anything associated with my mother very seriously indeed. "She left me a video that she recorded on the night she…disappeared."
Frank just stared as if spooked by something. "What…did she say?"
"She told me to come and see you."
He looked down for a second, then nodded. "And here you are."
"You found me first."
"I did."
"Now you don’t know what to do with me."
Snorting slightly, Frank nodded. "Maybe. I’m used to being alone up here."
"I can leave if you want."
"What?" He shook his head. "You wouldn’t last an hour out there before you were kidnapped or killed, or both."